Centre Explains How Top Court's Aadhaar Verdict Impacts Mobile Users

Re-verification of mobile subscribers KYC details is now voluntary, said DoT-UIDAI in a joint statement.

Rejecting a report by an English daily that said 500 million mobile numbers, nearly half of the total mobiles in circulation, are at the risk of disconnection, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) issued a joint statement.

The statement also clarified that those users who had obtained SIM cards on the basis of Aadhaar verification will not face any discontinuation of services. There was speculation that subscribers enrolled through Aadhaar-based authentication process may have to provide fresh documents to complete their Know Your Customer (KYC) process again.

The exit plan Thakur is referring to is the blueprint that the telcos submitted on October 15 on closing down their Aadhaar-based authentication systems in line with the Unique Identification Authority of India's (UIDAI) orders.

Apart from these, millions of older customers are also left with only the digital Aadhaar identification since their previous pre-Aadhaar KYC paper documents may have been destroyed by telecom companies once their numbers were linked with Aadhaar.

"The Hon'ble Supreme Court in its judgement in Aadhaar case has nowhere directed that the mobile number which has been issued through Aadhaar eKYC has to be disconnected".

It further noted that the Supreme Court has not asked operators to delete existing eKYC data of their customers. What the apex Court has asked that UIDAI should not keep authentication log for more than 6 months.

On Wednesday, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan met mobile companies on the matter where a way out, and an alternative was discussed.

The issue has come to the fore following the Supreme Court's verdict restraining the use of biometric ID for authentication purposes by private firms, including telecom providers.

"In the proposed process, a live photograph of the person with latitude, longitude, and time stamp will be captured". The photo of her ID such as Aadhaar card, voter ID, etc., will be captured.

The judgement has impacted digital payment companies as the eKYC process has been done away with.